


Floral Princess

by vands88



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash February 2018, Original Character(s), POV Jake, Rosa Diaz Gets A Girlfriend, Rosa and Jake are Bros, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 17:19:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13815846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vands88/pseuds/vands88
Summary: or that one where Rosa crushes hard on a legit floral princess but keeps accidentally accusing her of felonies (featuring Good Bro, Jake Peralta)





	Floral Princess

“She’s guilty,” Rosa accuses as soon as they’re out of earshot.

Jake is still trying to process Rosa’s unusual silent act during the interrogation, so it takes him embarrassingly long to connect the dots as he looks between the crime scene and his partner in bewilderment. 

Then, it finally slots into place and he snorts derisively. “ _Kameela_?” he exclaims.

She folds her arms and nods sternly.

“Yah _right_ ,” he says, like a highschooler. “Kameela’s _perfect_. Like, Disney princess perfect. There’s no way she’s the rob-your-own-business-for-the-insurance kinda gal. I mean, I’ve known her for five minutes, and I’m pretty sure I’m right about this. I mean, just look at her-”

He waves his arm, literally through the broken window of the florist shop, to indicate the shop owner whose golden skin sparkles with the incoming sunlight. Kameela dances gracefully through the crime scene with a yellow dress as bright as her flowers, her long hair adorned with ribbons and floral clips, her ears pierced with dainty earrings, her silver bangles clinking together like windchimes as she moves, and the scent of violets exuding softly with every delicate movement. She radiates warm and comfort and optimism even now as police swarm around her wrecked premises. 

“-she literally looks like she could burst into song any moment. Plus, she was super nice to us even though you gave her the cold shoulder - thanks, by the way, for not asking a single question, really great partnership there Rosa - but she’s just a straight up Disney princess. There’s literally no way she did it.” 

Rosa looks away, flustered. “Exactly,” she bites. “She’s _too_ perfect. I don’t like it.”

“Sure,” Jake shouts to her as she walks away. “We’ll just pretend that’s what’s going on here then!”

She gives him the finger over her shoulder.

***

Rosa insists on trawling through the florist’s financials in an attempt to prove Kameela staged a robbery for the insurance money. It’s entirely pointless but trying to talk Rosa out of a vendetta is like trying to tell Amy they don’t need anything from the stationary store, so Jake gets comfortable, with his feet on the table, and entertains himself by trying to catch Cheetos in his mouth, while Rosa pours over the files. 

“Are you done yet?” he asks after an hour.

“Stop asking me that.” 

“But I’m booooooored,” he sing songs, tipping back on his chair.

“It would go quicker if you helped,” she bites, grabbing the pack of Cheetos from his hands.

His chair tips back forward and he comes down with a thud and a half-hearted protest as his delicious snack is taken from him. “Come on, Rosa. Just admit you have a crush on our floral princess already, so we can find some actual suspects.”

She pauses mid-movement and blushes, and Jake chuckles at how incredibly obvious she is. “I do not,” she says carefully, “have a ‘crush,’” Jake raises an eyebrow, “on our _suspect_.”

“A ‘suspect,’ suuuuure,” Jake says sarcastically, picking a discarded page of accounts at random and picking the most disgustingly good thing he can find, “who gives a recurring donation to the local animal shelter. Oh yeah, pure evil.”

Rosa grabs the pages from his hands. “It’s suspicious,” she insists, shuffling the papers. “It’s exactly ten percent of the company’s profits every quarter. That’s a ridiculous thing to do. Unless… unless it’s a bribe.”

“No-” Jake begins, but Rosa already has her Business Face on, has grabbed her jacket, and is out the door.

He groans, and slinks from the chair, resigned to follow.

***

“Kameela?” the spotty teenager on reception says, “Oh yeah, I know her.”

“Because she’s a vile, evil, bribing, thieving, criminal?” Rosa prompts eagerly.

Jake opens his mouth to set things straight, but then remembers the whole Amy-stationary-store debacle, and closes it again.

“No?” the kid says, unsure. “Because she’s our largest sponsor?” 

Jake leans against the desk, purposefully wedging himself between Rosa’s glare and the poor terrified kid. “Oh yeah?” he asks, with a withering look at Rosa. “Please, tell us more.” 

***

They stand in front of the puppy play area named after Kameela Amin with a large, framed, portrait on the wall of her perfect face. And Jake, gleeful, looks across at a fuming Rosa. 

“So, let me get this straight,” Rosa says to the kid, arms folded, “Not only does Kameela donate an implausible amount of her turnover to you, but she also… adopts as many animals as she can that are about to be put down?”

The kid nods enthusiastically even as Rosa narrows her eyes. “And she’s such a sweetheart,” he gushes, “She sometimes she even brings in homemade treats for the animals here, even poor Buster who-”

“Uh-huh,” Rosa interrupts coldly. “What a sweetheart. Thanks for your time,” she says, sounding like she means not a word of it.

***

The visit to the animal shelter is at least enough to convince Rosa to seek out other suspects. Kameela’s long-lost brother, Aasir, definitely has the motive and opportunity, but he has no known address and seems suspiciously unlocatable. 

“Maybe we should go talk to Kameela’s mother,” Jake suggests as they sit in the car. “See if she knows where he’s at.” 

Rosa grunts. Her arms are folded, she’s looking out the window, pretending to be disinterested.

Jake sighs and somehow resists banging his head against the steering wheel in frustration. 

“Unless,” he stresses, “You have any better suggestions?”

She frowns and shakes her head, tilting her head back to down the remainder of some M&Ms to munch on passive aggressively in a way only Rosa can. “Nope,” she says, popping the ‘p,’ “Let’s go find this son of a bitch.”

***

They park outside the mother’s house and Rosa is frowning at the little white picket fencing and the flowerbeds in bloom.

“Kameela lives here too, doesn’t she?”

“Yup,” Jake says proudly, well impressed that he tricked her into coming here. 

“Let me guess,” Rosa drawls as she gets out of the car, “Kameela’s caring for her sick, elderly, mother out of the goodness of her heart.”

Jake smirks because, sure, that sentence started out mean, but Rosa’s voice had softened, and her face has twisted into something sappy by the end of it. 

“Urgh,” she grunts, kicking at the chalk drawings - art, really - on the path up to the house. “Gross.”

Jake shakes his head with a laugh.

“What?” Rosa says, indignant. 

“You are crushing on her, _so_ hard.”

Rosa punches him and it’s hard enough to make him topple.

They ring the bell on the house that may as well be a cottage from a fairytale and an elderly lady answers the door with a quilted blanket wrapped over her shoulders (looking suspiciously handmade). Rosa grunts in annoyance.

“Hello, Mrs Amin,” Jake greets, as Rosa stands there, once again in stony silence. “Detectives Peralta and Diaz. We’re enquiring about the whereabouts of your son, Aasir Amin. Kameela’s younger brother. Twenty-eight years old. Last known address in Chicago, three years ago.”

Mrs Amin coughs and leans against the doorframe to recover, obviously very ill. Jake looks across to Rosa to see her frowning in concern, even reaching an arm out towards her. “Are you alright, Mrs Amin?”

“Oh, yes, thank you. But you’ll have to ask Kameela about Aasir. She was the one that took him from Chicago.”

Rosa raises an eyebrow, and Jake fights not to roll his eyes. Clearly that’s all she needed to get suspicious again. “Is that so?”

Jake cuts in before this can turn into an interrogation, “Is Kameela home, Mrs Amin?”

She shakes her head and pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Oh no, she’s working.”

“At the shop?” Rosa asks. “But her opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday, 8am to 4, she shouldn’t be working this evening -”

Jake looks at her with surprise.

“It’s not weird that I know that,” she hurriedly defends. “It’s relevant to the case.”

“Uh-huh.”

Mrs Amin seems indifferent to their bickering as she answers, “No, no, at her evening job. Entertaining.”

“What’sthatnow?”

***

“ _Entertaining_ ,” Rosa says derisively, as they walk the block and a half to the address Mrs Amin had scribbled down for them. “So this is her dirty little secret. I knew she couldn’t be so perfect. She’s a stripper. Or worse, a _jazz player_.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Jake interjects. “We don’t know she’s into _jazz._ Entertainment could mean all sorts of things - sex work, roller derby, drug dealing…” he tails off at Rosa’s glare. “I’m not helping, am I?”

***

The door opens to a kid’s birthday party. 

“Oh no,” Rosa says with dread. “Please don’t tell me she’s a _clown_.” 

Jake frowns and looks across to her.

“What? I’m not allowed to have a phobia? Clowns are downright creepy. I stand by that.”

Jake files that information away and shakes his head to clear it as he turns to introduce them to the parent stood in the doorway. “Peralta, Diaz, we’re looking for Ms Kameela Amin-”

“Oh, Kameela!” he exclaims with joy.

Rosa groans. She’s probably getting real tired of everyone reacting to her name like that. 

“Yes, yes, come in, come in!” the father says, ushering them in. “She’s with the kids right now, but she’s got a break in five if you can hold on-”

Jake honestly zones out to the rest of his prattling when he notices Rosa frozen in the doorway to the living room; a look of wonder on her face. He sidles back to see what she’s looking at, and kinda melts at the sight too.

Kameela is in a large, puffy, green dress, her long hair tied into a neat bun with a tiara perched atop it, with a circle children around her dressed in similar costumes, looking at her with awe. She’s playing some kind of dancing game with them. For the most part, the kids have similar skintones to Kameela herself - black, Indian, or mixed race liked herself - and the little girls are all dancing round her, utterly carefree, playing at being princesses. It’s enough to bring a tear to anyone’s eyes.

“She’s… an actual princess,” Rosa whispers. 

Jake looks across to her and sees suspiciously wet eyes and a small smile on her face as she watches.

“And a florist. An actual… floral princess,” she says with the cutest little laugh that Jake has ever heard.

It must attract the attention of Kameela too, as she looks up briefly to see them, and looks as stunned by Rosa, as Rosa is stunned by her, and for a second they both just stare at each other, blushing, in silence, until Kameela raises a little hand to wave, and Rosa flushes bright red and runs away. 

“Well,” Jake mutters to himself, as he follows Rosa to the kitchen. “That went better than last time at least.” 

***

“Okay,” Jake says, slamming the car door as he slips into the driver’s seat. “When I said ‘Rosa, it would be cool if you talked to Kameela this time’, I did not mean, ‘Rosa, please accuse the nice lady of harbouring a drug dealing fugitive in front of a party of five-year-old princesses.’” 

Rosa groans and knocks her head against the headrest. “I know!” she exclaims. “I’m sorry! I just see her and it’s like my entire brain stops working. And she looked at me, and smiled, and I… panicked.”

“Sure, and that’s a perfectly normal thing to do,” Jake says, somewhat earnestly, “but normally when people panic they call their girlfriend ‘mom’ or sing ‘We Will Rock You’ to fill the awkward silence or start slinging jello shots… They don’t tend to accuse their crush of a felony…. _Another_ felony,” he amends, not forgetting the robbery accusation that started all this. 

“Yeah,” Rosa says grimly. “That was probably a mistake.”

She looks a little too depressed by the sentiment, so Jake tries to bring her back to the case. “But, still, at least now we can rule out the brother.”

“Because he had a drug problem so she drove halfway across the country to talk to him, convinced the treatment centre to help him off books so that it wouldn’t affect his career as a pastry chef when he got clean, and she only didn’t tell us because she didn’t want her mother to find out because her health can’t take it, so Kameela’s been paying his medical bills and looking out for him all this time because Kameela’s such a nice, considerate, person.”

“Yeah,” Jake says, at her flat monologue. “Because _that_.”

***

“We should ask Kameela about her exes.”

“Whoa,” Jake says, nearly spilling his coffee in surprise. It is far too early in the morning to be ambushed like this. 

“No, I’ve been thinking about it. It makes sense. Kameela’s perfect. Who’s gonna want to ruin that? An ex. It makes sense.”

Jake finally looks up to see Rosa’s eyes wide and red-rimmed. “Have you been working the case all night?”

She shrugs. “I reviewed some old CCTV footage. No biggie. But I did see the same girl come and go a few times. It would be useful to know if Kameela knows her.”

Jake rubs his hands over his eyes and attempts not to sigh dramatically enough for Boyle to notice and offer him a backrub. “Rosa, are you sure you’re not just…” he waves his hand between them, attempting to find the word, “ _interested_ in this for your own-”

“No.”

“Oooookay. Exes it is.”

***

“Oh, that’s Sarah!” Kameela says, with far too much glee for anyone to be talking about their ex. The glare Rosa seems to send over the table pretty much confirms as much. 

“Not that I’m seeing her anymore, of course,” Kameela hurries to correct with a quick, bashful glance, at Rosa.

Jake goes to raise his eyebrows suggestively at Rosa only to find her still glaring at the CCTV picture in her hands, having missed the entire exchange. 

“But I was… _seeing_ her,” Kameela rambles. “I _am_ … I mean…”

Rosa looks up. They lock eyes.

“Interested,” Kameela says, with definite meaning.

Jake looks between them and it’s so intense he begins to wonder if lesbian sex is just _staring_ at each other longingly for eons at a time. 

Kameela swallows, and breaks the gaze. “In women. I am interested in women. In general.” She clears her throat.

And, oh boy, is this getting awkward. Rosa’s just sat beside him, clammed up, and blushing, staring vacantly into the distance. Kameela’s staring down at her joined hands as if she wants the ground to swallow her up.

What, the actual, fuck.

“ _Anyway_ …”

***

“Sooooooo. Not an ex,” Jake concludes as they leave Kameela in the interrogation room.

“Not an ex,” Rosa confirms, which is amazing because Jake had thought she’d lost the ability to communicate entirely. 

Rosa strides across the conjoined room and then back again, and then she sees Kameela through the window, sat calmly and singing softly, and turns around and paces again. “I didn’t know people actually stayed friends with their exes. How has she not had a single bad break up? _How is that possible_?”

Jake holds up his hands as Rosa’s fury gets her within spitting distance. 

She steps away again, with her hands on her hips, breathing rapidly. 

“Are you… okay?” Jake asks after a minute.

Rosa looks sideways, into the interrogation room, and her face crumples with distress. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“Hey, hey,” Jake soothes, bringing Rosa in for a hug. “She likes you.”

“I know,” Rosa mumbles into his shirt. “That’s what makes it so hard.” She pulls back a little to explain, “I don’t have _good_ breakups, I don’t wear pretty dresses, or bake cookies, or adopt kittens. I ride a _motorcycle_ , I carry at least three weapons on me at all times - don’t look, you won’t find them - and the last time I wore anything that had _flowers_ on it, it was three years ago because I was undercover in a maternity store and it was either flowers or frills. I don’t… know how to date someone like her. I don’t even know how to _talk_ to someone like her.”

Jake pulls her back in for a hug and rubs her back as soothingly as he can. “I didn’t think I had anything in common with Amy when I first met her. I thought she was such a nerd, she’d never learn to have fun. But, hey, turns out I’m pretty nerdy. And turns out she’s pretty fun. Guess what I’m saying is… first appearances aren’t everything, you know? You like each other. Instinctively. So deep down, there’s gotta be a reason why.”

Rosa pulls away with that soft frown she gets when she’s confused by emotions. “Thanks, man, that… actually helped.”

Jake tries not to be too insulted by that.

***

They crack the case the next day. Rosa had the breakthrough that since literally everyone who has met Kameela is in love with her and wouldn’t dare hurt her business, that it had to be an opportunist, despite all the signs pointing to a motivated attack. And once they were on the right track, they uncovered a whole string of similar robberies, and managed to bring the suspects in. Rosa had even wrangled a confession from one of them.

“Come on,” Jake says, elbowing his partner, “We should go tell Kameela the good news.”

But Rosa doesn’t budge from her desk.

“I, uh,” she starts, kicking her feet up onto the desk, and popping an M&M. “Don’t think I’m gonna go.”

Jake pauses in putting on his jacket and stares at her in disbelief. “What?” he says, finally finishing the movement. “After all this, you’re… not going to go?”

“Yeah, I’m cool.”

“You’re… cool?”

Rosa looks up at him with annoyance. “Are you just gonna stand there repeating everything I say?”

He puts on a high-pitched voice and repeats the exact same phrase back mockingly.

Rosa gives him a withering glare. “I’m not going. That’s final. I’m sure she’ll be happy the case is over and she never has to see me again.”

“Oooookay then.”

***

Kameela’s face actually _falls_ when he enters the flower shop and she sees Rosa’s not with Jake. He didn’t think she even _knew_ how to be sad up until this point.

“Look,” he says hurriedly because OH NO SHE CAN’T BE SAD, “It’s not that Rosa didn’t want to be here, it’s just that…” he realises he has no idea how to end this sentence and wavers in increasingly awkward pauses. 

“Oh, screw it,” he says finally. “Rosa can kill me for this later and I don’t even care.”

He takes a deep breath to prepare for what are likely to be his last words and notices that Kameela is hanging onto every single one of them.

“Rosa really likes you, okay? But she’s also a complete human disaster and you’re…” he indicates to her, surrounded by her beautiful, bright, flowers, “you know, an actual floral princess or something. I think she’s worried that she’s going to ruin you which is ridiculous because Rosa is actually one of the most caring, supportive, people that I know. Sure, she’s a little scary. But she’s also really quite shy. She’s badass, but super nerdy. She hates everyone but would do literally anything for her friends. Her favorite color is black - even though that’s not a color, by the way - but her apartment is covered in potted plants. She hates popcorn, but likes M&Ms, she likes that one fantasy book series but rolls her eyes every time someone mentions Harry Potter… and okay, I’m running out of stuff to say, but you get the idea, right? She’s _into_ you.”

Kameela seems stunned before him.

“She’s a mess,” Jake concludes. “But we love her.”

Kameela opens her mouth a couple of times, but no words seem to come out. 

Jake begins to fidget on the spot, nervously. “Go team!” he tries. “Tiana is the best princess!” Still nothing. “Ooooookay,” he says finally, clasping his hands together. “I don’t know what I’m saying anymore, I’m just going to go… Yup. Going.”

He’s outside the florist when he remembers the reason why he came, and shouts back through the doorway - “We caught the bad guy by the way!” 

***

Jake definitely does not tell Rosa about his failed attempt to talk to Kameela. He figures if his ramblings worked, then Kameela will reach out, but as the days pass and Rosa gets mopier and mopier, he starts to worry that they have a critical case of inaction. 

It’s day three and Rosa has literally just thrown the copier out the precinct window.

“Heeeeey,” Jake says softly, approaching as carefully as one would a mountain lion, “I’m sure that copier had it coming, but just in case… maybe we should step away from the window before the printer gets it too?”

“She was literally the most amazing woman I’ve ever met in my life,” Rosa says despondently. “And all I did was accuse her of a felony. Twice.”

“Hey,” Jake soothes, “That’s not fair, you also made a veterinarian cry and taught five-year-olds how to smuggle cocaine.”

“I’m serious, Jake. I blew it. The first person I really felt something for after Pimento and I went and blew it.”

There’s a soft knock at the office door, and Jake turns to see none other than Kameela, standing meekly in the doorway, with her hair loosely braided and a large cake box in her hands. “Hi, I hope I’m not interrupting.”

Rosa turns around so fast, Jake’s worried she’s going to get whiplash, as she looks at Kameela with wide, unblinking eyes. “Hi,” Rosa stutters. “You’re here. You’re not a criminal. Unless that box is a bomb…. Is that box a bomb?!”

“Oh good,” Jake says with false cheer, “It’s accusation number three.” 

Kameela laughs softly and Rosa’s stern expression melts away immediately. “Not a bomb,” she confirms with a smile. She opens the lid to reveal a large cookie beneath that seems to spell out “thank you” in chocolate. “I’m sorry it’s a bit late, it took me awhile to find black food colouring, and then to dye all those M&Ms individually but… I hope you like it?”

“You… made me a cookie?” Rosa says in disbelief, stepping forward to get a closer look, as Jake tries to sidle further and further out of the room. “You made me a cookie with black M&Ms?”

Kameela nods. “Is that… okay?”

_Please don’t ask if she poisoned it. Please don’t ask if she poisoned it._

“Yeah,” Rosa says, and Jake breathes a sigh of relief. “I… really like it. I really like _you._ ”

Kameela blushes. Rosa blushes. It’s a whole blushing-staring-stalemate thing again. 

Jake is literally two steps away from freedom when Rosa frowns and turns her Business Face to Jake instead. “Wait. How did she know I liked M&Ms?”

***

Unbelievably, it takes them another two weeks to go on a date. And then it goes from blushing and avoiding eye contact, to blushing and handholding, and every time Kameela drops by the precinct, Jake makes a point to stop what he’s doing to watch Rosa have a full on meltdown. 

It’s hilarious every time because it’s like Rosa’s still trying to be a badass but literally cannot while Kameela’s in the room.

It’s always heart eyes straight away, but then it’s like Rosa remembers she’s in public, and changes it to a hard glare. Then Kameela will kiss her cheek or her hand or something equally adorable, and Rosa will visibly melt, and then Kameela will produce baked goods or flowers or a hand-stitched quilt and Rosa will get all flustered and oscillate between grumbling and gratitude until it settles on embarrassment, and by the end of it, Rosa is kissing her so sweetly that even the hardened criminals behind bars are swooning. 

Jake sighs happily, head cradled in his hands, as he watches the latest exchange between them. They’re so _happy_. 

A file lands loudly on his desk. “Peralta, stop creeping and get back to work.”

“I’m not creeping, Serge,” Jake defends to Jeffords. “I’m just enjoying the fruits of my labor!” Jake says, lounging back in his chair to better enjoy the victory. “I got them together, you know!” he shouts across the precinct as Sergeant Jeffords retreats.

Jeffords looks towards the two of them, still wrapped up in each other, and huffs in disbelief, “Yeah, right,” he laughs. “Like Rosa needs _anyone_ ’s help in that department. Come on, Jake, be real.”

“Yeah, Jake, _be real_ ,” Boyle pitches in. “If anyone’s a matchmaker round here, it’s clearly me.”

Jake gapes and turns to Amy for support. “Babe, you believe me, right?”

Amy busies herself with her papers, clearly not interested in taking sides.

“Babe?” he asks again, a little more panicked. 

“Yo,” Rosa greets, popping a M&M in her mouth as she walks over. “What we talking about?”

“How Jake is trying to take the credit for you and Kameela,” Boyle supplies.

Rosa frowns and Jake is outright offended. “Don’t know what he’s talking about,” she shrugs. “I never need any help in that department.”

“What?!” Jake squeaks at her cool denial. “You were speechless! The whole time! If it weren’t for me, you’d both have spent your entire lives, pining away, staring at each other wordlessly until you died!”

Rosa raises an eyebrow as if this is the most ludicrous thing she’s ever heard. “Whatever you say, man.” 

Boyle huffs, and with a clasp on his shoulder, the rest of the crowd disperse, shaking their head at Silly Jake and his Silly Fantasies. 

“Here, man,” Rosa says, tossing him a bag. “Kameela made you some muffins to say thanks for hooking us up.”

“Whaaaa…?”

“You did me a solid. I appreciate it.”

Jake flails so wildly he’s practically out of his chair. “Dude, you couldn’t have said that _literally_ ten seconds ago?!”

Rosa shrugs and pops another M&M in her mouth. “Nope. And if you ever bring it up again, I’ll kill you where you stand.”

Jake laughs nervously. “Joking. You’re joking, right? Rosa? Rosa? ROSA SAY YOU’RE JOKING PLEASE. ROSA!!!”


End file.
